Gene sleuths stop superbug

In this photo taken Aug. 21, 2012, Dr. Tara Palmore, deputy hospital epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, left, and Dr. Julie Segre, a geneticist with the National Human Genome Research Institute, pose at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. Last year a deadly superbug spread through the nation's leading research hospital, killing six patients before it could be stopped. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md., scrubbed with bleach, locked down patients and even ripped out plumbing. In the end, it took gene detectives analyzing the germ's DNA to trace it to its source. It came from a New York City patient who was admitted for a medical study. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Associated Press

Summary

Over six frightening months, a deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics spread in the nation's leading research hospital.

WASHINGTON — Over six frightening months, a deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics spread in the nation's leading research hospital. Pretty soon, a patient a week was catching the bug. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health locked down patients, cleaned with bleach, even ripped out plumbing — and still the germ persisted.

By the end, 18 people harbored the dangerous germ, and six died of bloodstream infections from it. Another five made it through the outbreak only to die from the diseases that brought them to NIH's world-famous campus in the first place.

It took gene detectives teasing apart the bacteria's DNA to solve the germ's wily spread, a CSI-like saga with lessons for hospitals everywhere as they struggle to contain the growing threat of superbugs.

It all stemmed from a single patient carrying a fairly new superbug known as KPC — Klebsiella pneumoniae that resists treatment by one of the last lines of defense, antibiotics called carbapenems.

"We never want this to happen again," said Dr. Tara Palmore, deputy hospital epidemiologist at the NIH Clinical Center.

Infections at health care facilities are one of the nation's leading causes of preventable death, claiming an estimated 99,000 lives a year. They're something of a silent killer, as hospitals fearful of lawsuits don't like to publicly reveal when they outfox infection control.

Wednesday, government researchers published an unusually candid account of last year's outbreak, with some advice: Fast sequencing of a germ's genome, its full DNA, may be essential. It can reveal how drug-resistant bacteria are spreading so that doctors can protect other patients.

"This is not an easy story to tell," said Dr. Julie Segre, a senior investigator at NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. She led the genetic sleuthing that found the bug hiding in sink drains and, most chilling, even in a ventilator that had been cleaned with bleach.

Infection-control specialists at other hospitals called this detailed anatomy of an outbreak, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, important to share.